I agree with Pat, you should have at least the written reports we gave the
BoD during the investigation phase leading to last weekend's meeting. So,
here's mine. Both professionally and personally fascinates me that, while
we recall the timings slightly differently, the facts are so closely
similar, since he wrote his privately from Dallas, I wrote mine privately
from Phoenix, and we didn't discuss the report contents with each other.

In any event, here's mine:

First, please accept my apologies for this eleventh hour, and necessarily
abbreviated (really, it is!), letter concerning my involvement as Merchants'
Row Autocrat with Estrella War XIII (EWXIII). Many pressures, not
enumerated here, have combined their efforts to thwart this letter to you.
Please forgive that my success against them comes to you so late.

Mark Kiel (Master Marcus) originally accepted the EWXIII Main Autocrat
position during Aaron and Alyssandre's reign in the Kingdom of Atenveldt.
At the time, Spring of 1996, I understood the conditions were that he would
work with a War-experienced Pelican. This became Pat Cuccurello (Master
Petruccio), who had helped run, or ran, four Estrella War events before
EWXII (none of us were involved in EWXII). The same day Mark accepted
Estrella Main, and Pat agreed to coach Mark as Main, Mark asked me to be
Merchants' Row Autocrat for EWXIII.

So, I helped to organize and put on EWXIII from the start. Because Pat and
I are married, and Mark and Pat have long been friends, I overheard many of
their conversations and discussions during preparation, set-up, running the
War, and what followed. From these, I learned about many problems
concerning EWXIII as they unfolded, of which the most memorable are here.

In background, there's factionalization in Atenveldt, no surprise to you. I
think one could pretty much draw an outline around many of the people who
actually ran Estrella War XII, including the EWXII Crown and the EWXIV
Crown, and that core could be seen as a faction that seems always in
upheaval trying to control the Kingdom, its Populace, its direction and its
traditions. I believe, going backwards in time, that this controversy;
those surrounding Don and Nikki (Erik and Nichelle); that concerning fealty
of incoming Royalty of two years ago; and those involving Mark and Jaque
Newman (Mark and Jaqueline von Newman) of some five and six years ago, are
examples of this faction's activities.

One focus in that faction is removing the War to the Schnepf Farms site. I
believe the EWXIII Kingdom Seneschal Ellen Parker (Eilidh MacMurtrie) and
Exchequer Bill Scott (William the Cursed) have been part of the faction I
mentioned. I believe they've favored the Schnepf Farms site, despite what
appear to me to be uninsurable dangers that make that site a liability as a
War site for the Kingdom and the SCA. I mention this because, if the
Estrella site is not or cannot be used for Estrella War in any given year,
the Park Service and surrounding Goodyear area may choose to rent that time
slot for and promote other events that need such a large site annually.
Hence, the future of the Estrella War event would be jeopardized. (I
strongly recommend the SCA have its insurance underwriter and financial
analyst explore the viability of the Schnepf Farms site for the February
event.)

From the start, the three of us found ourselves having to "reinvent the
wheel" for EWXIII. The difficulties we had trying to find out "where we'd
been" so we could map out "where we were going", suggest to me that the
previous War's personnel were reluctant to share information with us. We
never had a budget, categories, and actual expenses from EWXII with which to
work into EWXIII. We couldn't get the EWXII financial and event reports,
about the handling of various Main and Sub-Autocrat positions and expenses,
from that War's autocrats, or Ellen or Bill.

For examples, it was months before I had a list of previous merchants to
whom I needed to send packets. What I finally did get was over 100 names,
addresses, phone numbers, merchandise types and miscellaneous information I
had to enter into the computer by hand; I was told the disk on which EWXII
Merchant information was stored was lost. Instead of having a report from
which to contact and work with the needed local regulatory authorities, I
had to locate contacts and requirements for the Estrella War events with the
Arizona Department of Revenue and the Maricopa County Health Department.
Finally, I never did have a Merchants' Row budget from the previous year.

Mark and Pat also had trouble making arrangements with vendors to complete
the vendor contacts and contracts necessary to secure hygienic and grounds
facilities and supplies to put EWXIII on. At least twice I overheard them
discussing that a vendor had upped his price in response to an arrangement
favoring the previous, EWXII, autocrats. It was almost entirely because Pat
had prior relationships and experience with some of these people, and his
own information gained from running other Estrella Wars, that Mark and he
had any information to work with. Ultimately, Ellen and Bill told us there
was no budget or report available for EWXII, and we'd have to work with what
we had or could find to set up EWXIII.

It was particularly hard for any of us to communicate with Ellen and Bill.
I frequently heard complaints that Mark and Pat's answering machine or voice
mail messages to Ellen and Bill were unanswered, and that they couldn't
reach either Ellen or Bill directly.

My experiences with Ellen and Bill were no different from what Mark and Pat
related to me. I incurred large postage and supplies expenses preparing and
mailing packets to prospective merchants. I called Bill many times to
arrange meetings for payments without any response. Each time, I asked for
a date, place and time when we could exchange receipts and a voucher for a
check. Each cancelled or missed appointment resulted in greater expenses I
was carrying. At one time, I was personally carrying over $800 in
receipted, reimbursable expenses! More than once I left messages on Bill's
machine, asking if I had to contact Ellen to get him to give me a check; and
on at least one occasion, telling him that I would sit in my car outside his
home until I saw him if I didn't have a check in hand within 48 hours. At
least twice, I called Ellen and left messages on her machine: she didn't
return my calls, either.

Pat and Mark figured out that they seemed to be being "stonewalled" for the
information they needed, so they arranged a "voucher" system with the
Crown's and Seneschal's permission to review any monies that were to be paid
to put the War on. I was at the meeting in which Bill agreed to follow that
procedure. Afterward, in the Sub-Autocrat meetings, Mark made it clear to
all of us that there were to be no agreements, commitments or payments for
monies relating to EWXIII unless the Sub-Autocrat prepared a voucher
explaining the cost, specifics of what it was for, to whom it was to be
paid, and by which Sub-Autocrat it was sought. To get a check, the
Sub-Autocrat was to give Bill a completed voucher signed by Mark, or
alternatively by Pat.

I tried to exchange such a voucher for a check at Kingdom event where I had
finally arranged a meeting that Bill kept. He and Ellen were sitting
together on a grassy hill a little apart from the activities, and while I
waited several yards away to be noticed by them, she wrote three or four
times to a page in a book, then went on to the next page and did the same.
When they motioned me to join them, I saw she was signing pages of blank
checks. When I offered the voucher and receipt copies to Bill, Ellen told
me, "You don't need the voucher; we're not doing that."

Another time when I had convinced Bill to meet me at a fighter practice for
a similar exchange, he took and tried to keep both the copies and originals
of the receipts. It took me more than six weeks to get him to return the
copies, and again I had to tell him I would have to refer the matter to the
Seneschal or Crown before I even got a call back from him. When I finally
did get the copies, they had notes on the back of them about reimbursement
checks he'd told me he'd cut and sent to merchants entitled to them. But,
these same merchants still called me and demanded the monies they were
entitled to. These kinds of calls continued even after the War.

Several weeks later, a week or two before EWXIII, Mark was at our house
while I was working on the Merchants' Row map. I overheard him and Pat ask
each other if they'd had any vouchers to sign. I said, "I thought you
weren't doing that?", and they then learned that Bill and Ellen were giving
people checks without requiring the vouchers.

There also was a problem with trying to get the insurance certificate to
cover EWXIII. In November, 1996, Mark said there was a problem contacting
Ellen about the certificate. In late December, when I was trying to
finalize Merchants' Row, I heard him and Pat trying to figure out why Ellen
said she didn't have the signed event documents they had handed her to get
the certificate. In January, Nikki (Nichelle, then Queen of Atenveldt)
talked with me about Ellen still not having the certificate, and not having
completed other work concerning Kingdom Laws. Nikki was worried that the
War would be cancelled for lack of proof of insurance. She was also
frustrated that the Kingdom couldn't remove Ellen as Seneschal for not
taking care of the Kingdom Seneschal business.

After EWXIII was over, Pat and I began getting calls from the Maricopa
County Park Ranger with whom the Kingdom contracts for use of the park. The
County wanted the rent on the park. Each time, I called Bill and left a
message on his machine to get in touch with Mark and the Park, and arrange
to get the fee paid. After no fewer than a half-dozen of these calls, and
no response from Bill, I put the ranger on my office conference call line so
he could hear me convey his message to Bill's machine. His message was: if
he wasn't paid in the next two days, he would decline the contract for the
1998 EWXIV; and would refer the bill to the County Attorney's Office for
collection from the Kingdom or the SCA. This was at least six weeks, and
may have been as late as three months, after EWXIII had ended.

By May, 1997, we still didn't have a financial report on the War from Bill.
We prepared reports of our various positions and activities and submitted
them with the information we did have. Just after this, Pat and I were
visiting Vicki Bostwick (Viscountess Mistress Roslyn of Saxony) in her home.
She showed us, not only the elusive EWXII report, but also a comparative
study between EWXII and EWXIII's financial reports! Pat looked like he'd
been poleaxed when he saw the EWXIII report. Within another month or so, we
learned that the Kingdom was investigating the financial results of EWXIII.
Mark, Pat and I each received letters from Amanda (Duchess Amanda, the new
Kingdom Seneschal), telling us to explain checks we'd received, what they
were for, where the money had been spent, and to whom it had gone.

Bill gave Pat a check for working funds of about $500 just before we started
setting up the War site. He used it to replenish supplies, such as rebar,
that had been depeleted and not restored by EWXII, and for other
incidentals, like photocopying several thousand parking permits, fuel for
rented gas carts, batteries, and diesel for the food service electricity
generator barrel, during the War. Because Bill insisted on having Pat's
receipts immediately after the War, and Pat had been working the War and for
his employer at the same time, he had no opportunity to make copies for his
own records. As a result, Pat was never reimbursed for some $60 of expenses
beyond the $500 advanced, although Pat gave Bill receipts for those, as well.

I, too, had given Bill receipts, or copies of receipts, for Merchants' Row
expenses. However, I kept copies of all my receipts, including the ones I
insisted Bill return to me. I both mailed and handed copies to Amanda. I
can also provide them to you. Had I been less insistent about getting and
keeping receipt copies, I'd be facing the same attack on my character as
Mark and Pat are now defending, and with as little substance to it. And
those records would have followed Pat's, having disappeared as misplaced or
destroyed, and would not be available as proof of these facts.

Conclusions can be drawn from these facts. The most obvious is that
Kingdom-level Officers deliberately denied the EWXIII Autocrats any control
of the financial aspects of EWXIII. In addition, Mark and Pat did their
jobs to the best of their abilities under adverse conditions. Moreover, the
history shows any sanctions sought against them may be motivated by ill-will
at worst, and scape-goating at best.

The motives for seeking sanctions against people who do their jobs in good
faith should be investigated, both presently and historically. Some action
must be taken to prevent future behaviors with similar motives. Anything
less dooms Atenveldt to continue a cycle that lies entirely outside the
ideals the SCA needs to remain viable.